


Whisper Into My Heart

by SkyeButterfly



Category: EXO (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, F/F, Humor, Light Angst, Romance, Social Media, Streamer Seulgi, YouTuber Irene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 10:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24469231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyeButterfly/pseuds/SkyeButterfly
Summary: Irene is a famous ASMR YouTuber, and Seulgi is just another Twitch streamer vying for attention from Irene who has the loveliest way of whispering into a mic.—or—Flirting on social media is a lot harder than Seulgi anticipates.
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene/Kang Seulgi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	1. Teaser

“I’m gonna date her. Watch me. I swear to _God_ I will.”

“You’re literally too afraid to follow her on Instagram.”

“I’m getting there!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming soon! This is my first Seulrene fic, and I am excited to share it with the world. You can also view it on AFF [here](https://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1446181/whisper-into-my-heart)!


	2. One

**[ June 6 ]**

The first time Seulgi saw Irene, she knew her heart was never going to be hers again; it was going to be Irene’s. From the moment her little “crush” turned from subscribing to Irene’s YouTube channel to literally creating an Instagram fan-page for the girl, Seulgi _knew._ In all her 23 years of existence, never has she felt like her heart was eating her from the inside out.

Is it pathetic? Perhaps, but the world is changing. If people can find love online, why can’t she do the same?

**[ June 7 ]**

“Do you ever look at another person and just wanna cry?”

“Are you _high?”_

“It’s a serious question, Baek!”

“For who? Stoners?”

Seulgi throws her PS4 controller at him, but he catches it easily in one hand. “It’s a serious question,” she insists. “Do you ever see someone so beautiful that your breath kinda just…” Seulgi makes a _WHOOSH_ sound, causing her friend to frown harder at her.

“The hell? Are you good?” he asks, eying her up and down.

“To be honest,” Seulgi raises her hand, “not really.” Baekhyun throws the controller back to her, and she absentmindedly twiddles her thumb over the controls. “I’m fucked. There’s this girl I like, but I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

“You know, the usual. If she’s gay, if she’s dating someone—that kinda stuff.”

“ _Ohhhh shiiiit.”_ Baekhyun sets his laptop down and walks over to the couch where Seulgi is wallowing in self-pity. “Who is she?” he asks with a curious grin. “Is she another streamer?”

“No, she does YouTube.” Seulgi closes her eyes for a moment and thinks of _her—_ the girl with luminous eyes and a voice forged from moonbeams and notes from Claude Debussy’s _Arabesque No. 1._ “She has 7 million subscribers so I’m basically nothing to her.”

“Hey, we literally have a combined follower count of 5 million on Twitch.”

“Yeah, but we’re fucking _streamers,_ and we _suck._ ”

“Speak for yourself.” Baekhyun crosses his arms and looks down on Seulgi with his upper lip curling into a scowl. “I’m a legend, but I don’t know about you. By the way, move.” He lifts her legs to give himself space on the couch to sit. “Is she another a gamer?”

“Nah, she does this thing called ASMR. Ever heard of it?”

“Yeah, it’s when people tap softly on stuff and it helps people sleep.”

_“Noooo,”_ Seulgi protests. “It’s different. It’s not just tapping. It’s like scratching noises, snapping, whispering—just _sounds._ ”

“Uh-huh. So what’s so special about her?” Baekhyun looks over at Seulgi and squints his eyes. “Have you even talked to her or are you just stalking her Instagram or something?”

“I mean I’ve commented on her YouTube livestreams.”

“Wow, you fucking _loser_.” Baekhyun laughs raucously as he poses his hand over his forehead to make an L.

Seulgi gasps at Baekhyun’s audacity. “As if you don’t spend hundreds of dollars on girls’ private Snapchats!”

“Hey.” Baekhyun raises both his hands and eyebrows to defend himself. “I’m supporting the sex work industry when I do that. What the hell are _you_ doing? Being a creep on someone’s livestream?”

“I’m not being a creep,” Seulgi huffs. “I’m just…a fan.”

Baekhyun shakes his head in clear disapproval. After all, it’s not the first time that she’s pulled off antics like this. “Dude, you have to get it together. You can’t just stalk girls online and cry over their Instagram pictures. You have to do _something._ ” He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “What’s her IG? I’ll flirt with her, and if she doesn’t flirt back then we’ll know she’s gay.”

“It doesn’t work like that!”

“Sure it does. What’s her username?”

“You know, just because a girl doesn’t flirt back with you, it doesn’t mean that she’s gay. She could just think you’re an asshole.”

“But I’m not an asshole. I’m pretty fucking cool.”

“No, you’re pretty fucking _stupid_.”

“Oh my, god, _Seul_. Just tell me her Instagram!”

Seulgi thinks about the last time she gave a girl’s Instagram account to Baekhyun. Not only did he DM the girl, he somehow managed to set her up on a date with Seulgi. It was probably the most traumatic experience of Seulgi’s existence—having to go on a random blind date with a girl that she had been following online for months. Still, as embarrassing as it was, Seulgi was and _is_ still thankful that he did that.

“It’s ASMR Irene,” Seulgi murmurs as she pretends to go back to playing _The Witcher 3._ “You better not fucking DM her.”

“I won’t.” Baekhyun taps at his phone for a few seconds, and Seulgi pretends to be sorting through her in-game inventory. In reality, she’s staring at Baekhyun through the corners of her eyes, waiting for him to make a comment about Irene. “Oh shit!” he exclaims after another few seconds. “She’s Korean too? Her real name is Joohyun?”

“ _Yeahhhh.”_ Seulgi once more pretends to be disinterested when she _really_ wants to run her mouth over Irene. “She said in a video that she’s from Daegu, but she’s in LA like us.”

“You’re a stalker, Seul.”

“I told you I was a fan.”

“Uh- _huh._ ” Baekhyun taps away on his phone, and Seulgi is concerned that he’s up to no good, but she doesn’t want him to accuse her of micromanaging. “You should just DM her. What do you have to lose anyways?”

“I have a lot to lose, excuse me. She could see me as a total idiot and not want to do anything with me,” Seulgi points out. She wishes she could be more like her confident, shameless friend—the idiotic yet somehow very lovable Byun Baekhyun—who isn’t afraid to curse loudly on streams, but she really isn’t _that_ type. “You know, it’s easy for you to say that,” she counters. You’re a guy. You could date any girl you like without backlash. Meanwhile 70% of my viewers are male, and I’d go broke.”

“Well, I think you should just go for it. She’s _right_ there.”

“I’ve never even met her.”

Baekhyun grins and rises from the couch. “That’s what DMs are for. Isn’t that how we met?”

\- - - - -

Later that night, when Baekhyun is in the middle of a PUBG livestream and when Seulgi can’t sleep, she performs her evening ritual of pulling Irene’s ASMR channel on her laptop and listening to her whispers. Baekhyun has long stopped accusing Seulgi of watching porn (“Yeah,” Seulgi always countered in her head, “it’s called _ear_ porn.”) out of his own hypocrisy, but Seulgi still opens a few random tabs on Twitter or Reddit just in case the boy bursts into her room and accuses her of anything.

Besides, it’s _her_ little thing: listening to Irene’s many nightly livestreams and watching her story time videos. Of course, Seulgi enjoys watching Irene’s hands tap along wooden boxes or tinfoil sheets, but there’s nothing like her voice.

_“Hi, hello…”_ Irene’s voice causes Seulgi to feel gentle tingles down her spine. _“Today,”_ Irene murmurs closely to a mic, “ _I visited my university’s library. I had,” she breathes, “to research a topic regarding the different stages of child development.”_

Moonlight, starlight, _delight._ Irene’s soft whisper can stop a war in the West and ignite another in Seulgi’s mind. She swears—Seulgi swears _on God_ —that she has never had a crush on someone like this. It’s not just Irene is pretty; she floats like a butterfly. 200 and counting vlogs on her second channel, and Seulgi knows it’s foolish to think that she _knows_ Irene, but her personality so soft and radiant that it can’t be missed. Overlooking that girl’s existence is like forgetting how to breathe. You just can’t do it.

**[ June 9 ]**

“I’m gonna date her,” Seulgi announces to Baekhyun one day. “Watch me. I swear to God I will.”

“You’re literally too afraid to follow her on Instagram.”

“I’m getting there!”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes yet peers over her shoulder anyways. “How are you afraid to follow her when you literally have a fan-page? Who even makes a fan-page for ASMR YouTubers?”

He has a point, but Seulgi will never admit that to him.

“Baek, get your face away from mine.” Seulgi lightly elbows him in the stomach, but that does little to get him to step away from her. Her thumb has been hovering over the _FOLLOW_ button on Irene’s Instagram page for the past minute, and Baekhyun is the definition of a _fly._ “I’ll do it, but I just need some time.”

“Why are you acting like you’re dying? Just do it.”

Without warning, Baekhyun reaches over and taps on the _FOLLOW_ button for Seulgi. It happens in less than a second, but Seulgi feels her mind melt and her mouth open in a silent _what the fuck?_

_“Baekhyun!”_ she screams at the now-laughing boy. “What is wrong with you?”

“You just needed a push.”

“I didn’t need it _literally!”_ Seulgi raises a hand to _bonk_ Baekhyun at the back of his annoying head, but he’s taller than her and dodges her flying hand with a laugh.

“Now go DM her,” Baekhyun encourages. “You’ll never get anywhere by being a coward.”

“I don’t even know what to say.” Seulgi tosses her phone over to Baekhyun who catches it as easily as any other object she throws at him. “I can’t even look at it. Why don’t _you_ DM her?”

Baekhyun stops in his tracks. “Are you serious?” he asks, brows raised. “You’re letting me?”

Seulgi, with her cheeks red and hot, tries to play it off cool, like she doesn’t care when she actually does. Truth is, she’s high on the rush of following her crush on Instagram. As much as she wants to yell at the sky, she also wants her chance at a little something…maybe more. 23 years old, and she can’t believe she’s acting like this, but it’s one a drop in a bucket of childish things she has done.

“Yeah,” she murmurs. She poises herself on her tiptoes to look over Baekhyun’s shoulder, but he bends down for her to give her full view of the direct message that he has already begun to compose. “Wait, you can’t say that, though!”

“I have literally only typed ‘hey’ and the smiley emoji.”

“Baek, that’s _so_ cringe-y! She’ll think I’m a child.”

“Hey, trust me when I say this works,” Baekhyun insists. He looks at her dead in the eye and wiggles his brows. “I’m a gamer, but PUBG isn’t the only game I’m good at if you know what I mean.” Before Seulgi can berate him for being so _eugh,_ he’s already tapping away at her phone’s keyboard. “This good?” he asks when he’s done.

“Hey, I love your videos,” Seulgi reads out loud, “you’re my favorite ASMR YouTuber. Keep up the good work. How have you been? Want to do a collab?”

“Well?” Baekhyun asks. “Is that good? I think it’s good.”

“I don’t know… It sounds generic and _forceful._ Like asking for a collab seems like it’s rushing.”

“It has to start off that way,” Baekhyun explains. “A little rushed, but that’ll keep her interested, you’ll see. Besides,” he says, shrugging, “if you ask for a collab, she’s more likely to go on your profile and see what you’re all about.”

As idiotic as Baekhyun is, maybe he does have a point…

“Come on,” Baekhyun says, continuing to walk forward. “Chanyeol and Wendy are waiting for us.”

Seulgi follows Baekhyun as they resume walking to Chanyeol and Wendy’s shared apartment up the hill. Baekhyun had handed her phone back to her without sending the message that he had written, leaving her to stare the words and the send icon. She only has to look at that icon for a second before she decides that she’s going to be brave— _stupid_ and brave—by tapping on it. Her message appears in a gray textbox, and she bumps right into Baekhyun with a small _oof._

\- - - - -

Seulgi has always wanted to have her own thing. By “own thing,” she means a quirk—a charm to set her apart.

Baekhyun has his gamer boy charm, Wendy is a singer so it’s a given that she’s charming, and Chanyeol knows how to play like 10 different instruments as well as sing so there’s no question as to what his charm is. But _her?_ Seulgi can’t compare to any one of her friends.

Gaming _is_ fun to Seulgi, but it’s not analogous to her as it is to Baekhyun. That boy gets endorsements from Twitch, has travelled all over the world for competitions, and at one point was the most popular member in an official gaming team—or whatever those little gatherings were called. Point is, Seulgi isn’t like that, despite having a Wikipedia page calling her a Korean gamer/streamer.

The only little quirk Seulgi thinks she has is that draws and paints from time to time, but it’s boring compared to what everyone else can do.

She realizes that when she and Baekhyun film a small collaboration for Wendy and Chanyeol’s channel—because Baekhyun isn’t just an online gamer; he’s practically a comedian. Wendy isn’t just another singer; she’s a songwriter who has written ballads for dramas. Chanyeol isn’t just a multi-instrumentalist; he’s producer who can _rap_ too.

Meanwhile, Seulgi _draws_ in her spare time.

Even Irene has her own charm; she’s a college student earning her master’s degree in psychology because she wants to be a psychologist or therapist in the future. That’s about a hundred times more interesting than being able to draw.

Thinking about how her personal shortcomings gets Seulgi in a funk, but she merely flips her hair over her shoulder and continues to play along with Baekhyun as they (badly) film a playful quartet sing-along.

**[ June 11 ]**

“Hey, what if I told you I just became blind?”

Baekhyun pulls his headphones away from his ears so that they fall around his neck. Out of nowhere, Seulgi walked into his gaming studio, sat on the table, and asked him that very profound question. His face accordingly contorts into one of confusion and his mouth opens—

“Huh?” he asks loudly.

“I’m blind,” Seulgi says again. “I’m blind—or I can’t read. I’m illiterate now.” She hands Baekhyun her phone. “Read that because you know, I’m _blind._ I can’t fucking read.”

Without another word, Baekhyun scans her phone, and his eyes widen when he realizes what she has shown him.

“She DM’ed you back.” Baekhyun stands up from his chair. “Irene sent you a message. _Oh my, god,_ what the _fuck?”_ He lets out a big gasp of air and throws a celebratory fist into the air before lifting Seulgi in a lung-crushing hug—though he’s quick to set her down and shove her phone into her face. “What did she say?” he exclaims. “Open it!”

“I can’t!” Seulgi yells back. “I-I-I-I’m blind!”

“Seulgi!”

Seulgi stammers and nearly drops her phone in all the excitement. She had seen the notification of Irene following her back and sending her a direct message, but that was _two hours_ ago. After seeing that, she had thrown her phone on her couch and smiled and rolled over in so much joy and anxiety that she still hasn’t gotten around to actually opening the message.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Seulgi hushes at Baekhyun as if she needs it to be quiet. Her hands shake as she opens Instagram, and Baekhyun’s breaths directly in her ear isn’t helping. “Oh my, god, I don’t know if I can—”

“Just do it!” Baekhyun taps on Irene’s unopened message.

It takes Seulgi a moment to process it, but suddenly she’s reading _hey!_

“Hey,” Baekhyun reads the message aloud, “thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoy my videos. I like yours too. I’d be down for a collab too L-O-L.”

“I’m deaf, I can’t hear anything either.”

“ _Huhuhu,”_ Baekhyun chortles and Seulgi inexplicably falls to the floor. “This is _huge,”_ he tells her as he joins her side on the floor. “You have to go say something to her now or else you’ll look like a bitch for leaving her on ‘read.’”

Seulgi is despondent. Though she knows sending and receiving a message is much different from meeting an idol in real life, she feels like she has met a goddess. She can’t read, she can’t hear, she can’t _live,_ and crushes are “supposed” to be fun? 23 years old, and she’s hyperventilating at the same time she thinks that this may be the start of something substantial.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this earlier, but I was experimenting with the writing!
> 
> This is story is based on character dialogue with little description between parts—sort of like a vlog hehe.  
> I think I’ll post on Tuesday and Fridays (twice a week, yes you heard it right) but with significantly shorter chapters than I normally do. ~2-3k words, but we’ll see!
> 
> Please let me know what you think :-D
> 
> —Skye


End file.
